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Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Misfortune, and one’s ability to weather it, is a major theme in the poem, where “Hope” is largely defined by its usefulness in helping the speaker through weather events or through hostile terrains. Many of these forces, such as the “Gale” (Line 5) and the “chillest land” (Line 9) are understood to indicate emotional states. It is significant, however, that these states find expression through natural, physical imagery. Even the bird’s “tune” (Line 3) could be understood, on its surface, as a natural phenomenon. All of the forces at work in this poem, in other words, are forces of nature.
The poem’s speaker, therefore, uses “hope” to help navigate powerful emotional forces beyond their control. Since the misfortunes are characterized through natural phenomena, the poem suggests that misfortune and emotional turmoil are both natural and inevitable. Natural phenomena are forces that cannot be fought, only weathered. This is why the bird’s “tune [...] is heard” (Line 3) in “the Gale” (Line 5) but cannot stop the wind. The same can be said for hope when one is in the throes of misfortune; hope cannot change the present misfortune, but it can help one’s endurance. This is true even if hope feels small and vulnerable to the forces of misfortune, like a “little Bird” (Line 5), would be to the force of a “Gale” (Line 7).
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Emily Dickinson
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Emily Dickinson
"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention
Emily Dickinson
I Can Wade Grief
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson
If I should die
Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall
Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Emily Dickinson
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson
The Only News I Know
Emily Dickinson
There is no Frigate like a Book
Emily Dickinson